294 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



imperfect or hasty generalizations, or of incidental inaccuracies of 

 statement or inference. 



Over one hundred important original Memoirs, generally too 

 elaborate to be published at length by any existing scientific society, 

 issued in editions many times larger than the most liberal of any 

 such society's issue, most of them now universally recognized as 

 classical and original authorities on their respective topics, forming 

 twenty-one large quarto volumes of "Smithsonian Contribu- 

 tions TO Knowledge," distributed over every portion of the 

 civilized or colonized world, constitute a monument to the memory 

 of the founder, James Smithson, such as never before w^as builded 

 on the foundation of one hundred thousand pounds: and before 

 which the popular I>yceums of our leading cities, with endowments 

 averaging double this amount, are dwarfed into insignificance. 



Such as these Lyceums with their local culture, admirable and 

 invaluable in their way, but exerting no influence upon the progress 

 of science, or outside of their own communities, and scarcely known 

 beyond their cities' walls, — such was the type of institute which 

 early legislators could alone imagine. Such as the " Smithsonian 

 Institution" stands to-day, — such is the monument mainly con- 

 structed by the foresight, the wisdom, and the resolution of Henry.* 

 All honor to the Regents, who with an enlightenment so far in 

 advance of the ruling intelligence of former days, and against the 

 pressures of overwhelming preponderance of even educated popular 

 sentiment, courageously adopted the programme of the Secretary 

 and Director they had appointed ; and who throughout his career, 

 so wisely, nobly, and steadfastly upheld his policy and his purpose. 



Fifteen octavo volumes of " Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collec- 

 tions " of a more technical character than the " Contributions," 



*"lt is not by its castellated building, nor the exhibition of the museum of 

 the Government, that tlie Institution lias achieved its present reputation; nor by 

 the collection and display of material objects of any kind, that it lias vindicated 

 the iiitcl licence and good faitli of the Government in the administration of the 

 trust. It is by its explorations, its researches, its pul)lii-ations, its distrilnition of 

 specimens, and its exchanges, constituting it an active living organization, that it 

 has rendered itself favorably Itnown in every part of the civilized world; has made 

 contributions to almost every branch of science; and brought, more than ever 

 before, into intimate and friendly relations, the Old and the New Worlds." (Memo- 

 rial to Congress, by Chancellor S. P. Chase, and Secretary Josepu JIenky. Smith- 

 sonian Itepoi-t for 1867, p. 111.) 



